Saturday, November 8, 2008

Shutterbug.

So amidst my wedding freakouts of the week, in an attempt to channel some of that energy, I endeavored to find a photographer. This has borne fruit rather quickly, or at least I hope it has.

A while back I had been referred to Dave Robbins, who takes amazingly gorgeous photographs but is completely out of our pricerange. I would totally suggest taking a look at him if you have about a gajillion dollars to spend on your wedding, and while your at it let Worker Bee Designs do the filming. The records of your day will be adorable, and I'm sure the trust fund won't mind the hit.

Jonathan and I, however, have no trust funds. We do have a little bitta cash though, and we want it to go to the right people. I decided to contact a girl named Sarah Tew who I had met during my open studios event last spring; she has a studio on the same floor of the same building where I have a studio. I wandered in through her open door that May day and was immediately intrigued: I loved her art, and liked her as a person - and then discovered that she does wedding photography to stay afloat.

I wasn't sure how professional she'd be, since in the context it felt like wedding photography was something she did on the side. But I thought what the hell, it can't hurt to ask, and sent an email inquiring as to prices and so forth. I got back a response immediately, with her 28 page color brochure of packages and custom options attached. Yeah, I think she's got the professional thing nailed. Apparently she's been doing the wedding photography thing pretty hardcore for about five years.

She also immediately confirmed that she's down with the kind of wedding I'm having and the kind of pictures I'll want of it - there will not be any glowey photos of my white satin pumps on a ream of lace... there of course won't be any white satin pumps either. There will be no shots of me gazing distantly out of a window, as if to look into my future. There may, however, be pictures of me and Jonathan sitting on a subway platform in our wedding clothes reading books...

We made an appointment for Friday, last night, so that we could make sure that the reality matched up to the fantasy. After our cakeexperiences, I didn't want to get my hopes up too high - she seemed just too good to be true! But they got up high anyway, because I have trouble staying on the ground with this kind of thing, and all the pieces just seemed to fit together so perfectly. Cakes are different than photographs - I had seen the kind of images this girl was capable of capturing, and the kidnapping of images is sort of my thing.

Anyway, we went to see her last night. I've been in her studio space before, so I knew what was coming there. It's nothing too fancy, but since I also rent in the building I have an idea of what she must be paying (and it ain't cheap). Since she'd had several wedding-type meetings that week, her walls were adorned with large prints of some of her best shots. I'd seen most of them on her website, but it's totally different to see them in person - even in enormous prints they were gorgeous.

So we sat down, and she had books and books and books for us to look through of her shots, which was fun. While we looked, we chatted - she's such a cool girl. I feel like she's someone we would hang out with. We mentioned that we'd like to get some albums, but that since we're vegan we don't want anything that involves any leather. Lo and behold, she reveals that she's a vegetarian! She doesn't want to offer leather, but there's just such a demand for it that she kind of has to. Well I can understand that. She also just got engaged this week - congrats Sarah! - so she has a renewed sort of energy about the whole wedding thing. Not that it didn't excite her before, cuz it did.

So we went through the options that we want as far as hours and albums and the hi res archival discs that she offers and so forth, and boom, done! We got ourselves a photographer! She did not want to take a deposit until we had done the whole contract thing - see, I told you she was all professional and whatnot - so that'll get ironed out next week.

I'm totally excited - she is exactly the kind of person that I want involved in the wedding. Creative and artistic, and yet totally on top of her shit with a really awesome work product. YES. Oh, and in the six-degrees-of-separation department, one of the display albums she had out was of the wedding of one of Jonathan's good friend's brother's best friends. Small world right?

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It goes like this.

We planned a whole vegan shebang up here in NYC, which even with our super-simple lowballing plans was singing to the tune of $25K... or more. So we decided that no way were we gonna drop that kind of cash on one day, no matter how important that day might be. We floated in limbo for a while. Have there been other problems? Oh yes, there have. But now we've arrived at a solid Plan B - wedding in New Orleans! Sounds a little nuts, right? But it actually makes more sense than anything else we've considered...

What is this girl rambling about?

Well, the thing is that my fiance and I are both vegan, and this wedding is for us. But of course we also want it to be amazing for our guests. We're also fairly non-traditional; there will be no church, I will not be wearing white, and we refuse to go into debt over this thing. No one's giving me to anyone, and there's no aisle to walk down anyway. What it all adds up to is that we'll be sort of starting from scratch, building a wedding that works for us from the ground up. We'll be doing a lot of things ourselves, from interrogating caterers and cake-makers to making our own centerpieces, bouquets, and invitations. It won't be as off-the-wall as some of the weddings out there, but it won't be your standard fare either, and it should be rather fun making it all happen. As my darling would say, you can color along and see what happens...

The ring. *sigh*

Our Lennox champagne glasses.

the mikasa cake serving set - look ma, no bows!

topiary!

Cupcakes from Vegan Treats that we are not having. But they were good!

About Me

vegan in new orleans, hurrah. i was born in a storm, and raised in one too. and then one named katrina changed my life. i have a hard time saying where i'm from, but i can tell you for sure that my heart and my home are in new orleans, the place where i wasn't born. i left there after nine years not knowing what i had - what's that old cliche? now i've returned with a better appreciation. in the interim, i spent 5.5 years in nyc riding the subway and taking pictures. i get by with a husband who loves to drive me crazy, four rescued rabbits, and one rescued monster who thinks himself a cat.